Feature: United fronts
Thursday, 15 January 2009 4:00 PM
By Alex Stevenson
Persuading politicians is always difficult. Which is why, in different ways, lobby groups are increasingly preferring a unified stance to get the government listening.
It's something noticeable across the political world. From shipping to the environment, pushing for change needs a unified, forceful argument if a real impact on policy is to be made.
Exactly how to go about achieving this depends on the circumstances, of course. Alliances between different organisations can do the trick. Sometimes mergers are needed. Occasionally, when the issues are hugely important, the lobbying system isn't enough by itself.
Whatever the ends are, though, the means require a fundamental unity. Some things never change.
Shortcut
One of the most common methods used as a shortcut to this need are all-party parliamentary groups. By becoming the secretariat of the relevant APPG, lobby organisations can have a voice at the heart of parliament. Hence Alcohol Concern looks after the APPG for alcohol misuse. Macmillan Cancer Support does the same for the cancer APPG. And there are many, many others. Some of these groupings of backbenchers are less serious than others; I'm looking at you, the APPG on jazz appreciation; but they can be used to drum up support for issues which don't usually get thought about.
There are APPGs on everything from genocide to shopping, world governance to the West Coast main line. One of the latest additions is the APPG on infrastructure, supported by the Institution of Civil Engineering (ICE). The planning bill tends to send people into automatic sleep mode but the issues it affects are wide-ranging: energy security, flood prevention and transport development, for a start.
"We must all work together to ensure important issues are highlighted and the necessary action taken to keep UK plc functioning at the highest possible standard," ICE's director-general Tom Foulkes said at the time of the APPG's launch in November. The group's active agenda over the next 12 months will force its cross-party members to confront the issues in a less confrontational atmosphere than the select committee format. Mr Foulkes' emphasis on working together is telling.
On some issues, of course, the kind of cross-party consensus needed to really influence issues outside parliament requires a more proactive approach. This is why so many lobby groups go into merger-and-acquisition mode so regularly: the University and College Union, (UCU) being one example.
Mergers
June 2006 saw an amalgamation of the Association of University Teachers and NATFHE, the University and College Lecturers' Union. The process was, inevitably, a complex one. But the UCU's general secretary Sally Hunt, who oversaw the process, is clear the tactic had been an effective one.
"We have as a result of the merger become a single voice for staff in post-16 education, certainly in terms of academic and senior related staff," Ms Hunt says.
"That was one of the very deliberate forward planning decisions we made and I've very glad we've done that."
The merged union contrasts with the disparate nature of the employers she regularly takes on. Ms Hunt is rather pleased with where this leaves her: the employers will have to find the "lowest common denominator" to achieve the kind of unity she enjoys.
"We're not in that position," she adds. "What we've actively done is recognise that education is something that overrides everything else in terms of the principles that we are proud to represent."
One Voice
Sometimes, of course, mergers aren't possible. The shipping sector, for example, contains many well-established organisations which work best as separate entities. It would be difficult to see the Baltic Exchange, British Ports Association and Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers under one umbrella. But that doesn't mean they can't lobby the government together.
Which is exactly why the One Voice campaign, led by the Chamber of Shipping, has been launched. The government is becoming increasingly keen on receiving lobbying advances from different sectors through unified approaches and, partly in response to this, the Chamber of Shipping will be making representations on behalf of the entire shipping, ports and maritime business services sector to the government.
The marine and coastal access bill is currently going through parliament and will be responded to by One Voice. Its other key issues include emphasising the strategic importance of the maritime services sector to the UK economy, air and water emissions and commodities market regulation.
"The project is still in its infancy, but we are already hearing positive noises from government as our new lobbying approach takes shape and gains momentum." One Voice chairman Richard Everitt explains.
"The initiative brings together the maritime sector to speak with a single voice on key strategic and practical issues of joint interest". By creating joined-up industry positions the maritime message can be heard "with greater weight by government and other audiences". Closer working between the groups is a welcome side-effect of the alliance, which ends up using partners' professional resources more effectively.
There are limits, of course, to this type of work; all policy areas are equal but some are more equal than others. Climate change is a classic example.
Horses for courses
This monolithic subject is hugely important as a long-term global threat. And in the run-up to the crucial Copenhagen summit in December, how some of the biggest international NGOs and aid agencies go about lobbying the government is of vital importance.
As WWF-UK's head of public affairs Margaret Ounsley explains, coalition work can sometimes be extremely effective. After much campaigning the government raises its emissions reduction commitment to 80 per cent by 2050 in the Climate Change Act.
"If the big NGOs had not been working together it would have been very easy for the government to try a divide and rule tactic," she says.
"When you're in a situation where you need to persuade MPs to coalesce around one issue and it's a very complicated area, to agree the priorities between us and then act as one is absolutely crucial. Otherwise you'll be a disparate group of people."
Yet on this grandest of scales there are some circumstances when joining together can actually be damaging.
"Sometimes the brand is actually very valuable," Ms Ounsley adds. By working together the impact of the logo can be dissipidated, making the question of which tactic works best a "horses for courses issue". Perhaps the most important thing is that dialogue takes place between organisations to decide which tactic is best: in the environmental sector the Green Alliance fills this role.
Beyond Westminster
Climate change, of course, is an interesting proposition because of the sheer size of the challenge it poses. It has led some to call for fundamental changes in the way our policy process works. Sustainability expert Jules Peck's radical agenda calls for society to abandon its consumerist roots and instead focus on "wellbeing" through a fundamental shift which he doubts British politicians have the ability to drive. Instead of looking to Westminster Mr Peck believes bottom-up initiatives like transition towns will show the way for the kind of change needed.
"Our only hope is that we can somehow encourage citizenship to themselves start doing the leading and some politicians can find the braveness to follow them," he says.
The lobbying establishment - part of the wider "civil society" whose transformation Mr Peck believes is vital to achieve his goals - may be as much part of this Westminster establishment as the politicians themselves.
"It's just as organisationally complex for a big NGO like WWF to tune into as it is for a political party or a commercial enterprise," Mr Peck - who worked for WWF for five years - continues.
His belief that the biggest NGOs "are in many ways as moralistic and inert as big commercial brands" means he doubts the entire sector's ultimate ability to work the radical changes to society he requires.
Talking to Mr Peck is a refreshing experience: he challenges the basic premises of the lobbying process by championing the abilities of ordinary citizens to create real change. The rise of digital democracy, seen to its fullest effect during the campaign to elect Barack Obama as the US' next president, shows the full potential this change holds for society.
Mr Peck's closing comments reveal the true purpose of all lobbying efforts: getting all those who essentially agree with each other to band together and make a difference.
"There is a deeply held universal desire for a good life and actually people deserve this. What they really want is to be happy, flourishing members of a community, in a secure environment," he adds.
Lobby organisations engage with politicians in the ways which work most effectively to promote change. A unified front, in whatever form it takes, can often be the best means to achieve this. Getting society together in support of the biggest issues seems like the biggest challenge of all.
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